When I get back to my apartment, Marin is sitting on the couch, feet resting on the coffee table. She’s reading the New York Times Business section with a bottle of water balanced on her knee.

“Read the newspaper online like a decent millennial,” I say as I drop my bag on the floor. “If you get ink smudges on my couch, I will kill you.”

Her curly blonde hair fans across the overstuffed pillows she’s propped on, and she turns her head in my direction. “You’ll forgive the ink smudges when you see the stack of celebratory chocolate chip cookies I put on the kitchen counter.”

“You baked?”

She scoffs. “I passed by Captain Cookie on my way over.”

“How did you know we’d need celebratory cookies?” I ask, because her level of faith in me is ridiculous, and I could’ve easily bombed this one. I nearly did.

“Because you’re you and you’re amazing under pressure,” she tells me. “I didn’t pass this off on you because I hate Alice Buchanan, I passed it off because she makes me nervous, and I didn’t think I’d hold up under that…look. You? No problem.”

Well, that’s a confidence booster I could’ve used earlier this morning.

Marin turns around and gets a glimpse of me for the first time since I walked through the door.

“Oh,” she says, taking in the dried-up coffee stain smattered across my boobs. A few worry lines crinkle the skin between her brows. “We do need celebratory cookies, don’t we?”

“Yes,” I reply as I head into the kitchen and grab a cookie. “We got the job. She hired security on her own though, so my brilliant idea of asking Hunter to give us a discount is shot to hell. That took away a huge chunk from our budget, but I think we can get the party done right with some financial creativity on our part.”

“Damn,” Marin replies under her breath, shaking her head. Then she focuses right on my shirt again. “Explain the stain, then. Did you go to the meeting like that?”

I glare at her, but there isn’t much heat behind it as I plop down next to her on the couch.

“I spilled coffee on myself on my way to the meeting, stopped at Target and got a new shirt, then spilled coffee on it again. Well, technically I didn’t, the doorman was a little clumsy-”

She tosses a throw pillow at me, laughing. “I can’t believe you went and got another coffee after you’d already spilled one on yourself. Tempt fate much?”

I tuck the pillow under my arm and take a bite of my cookie. “I, uh…I technically didn’t buy another coffee, I stole someone else’s.”

Marin’s face scrunches up in disgust. “Ew.”

“The guy Hunter put on this party was there. It was his, uh…Jesse.”

Marin thinks on that for a moment, then her eyes get wide. “Jesse? This is something Jesse?”

“Can we not talk about one of the more embarrassing moments of my adult life, please?” Sometimes, during sleepless nights, my traitor brain likes to conjure up that moment in time and replay it over and over again in excruciating detail. The way my heart thudded in my chest when I put myself out there, the idiotic hope that kept butterflies slamming against my stomach until Jesse gave me that kind smile and said, “I’m sorry, Alexa. I—”

Just thinking about it makes me want to crawl into a hole.

“I’m sorry. Was it weird having to work with him? Want me to tag in? I could—”

“No,” I sigh. “It’s fine. He was nice, and it wasn’t as awkward as it could’ve been. It’s gonna be okay.”

“If you’d said something, I would’ve gone instead,” she says, looking upset that she unwittingly let me get sucked into a whirlwind of past embarrassment.

“I didn’t find out until this morning, when it was too late. Besides, I wouldn’t have asked you to take my place anyway. You know that’s not my style.”

She looks like she doesn’t quite believe me.

“It’s fine,” I say, reaching over and patting her hand. “It honed my business skills. If I can stay on point and get us a job wearing a coffee-stained shirt while having to work with an ex-crush, all while dealing with arguably the world’s most curt and rude woman? Nothing can stop me.”

That makes Marin laugh. “She’s pretty terrible, isn’t she?”

My eyes widen. “Oh yeah.”

“What’d she say about the shirt?”

I look down at the stain, thinking I might not bother washing it after all. Maybe I’ll keep it as-is, as a badge of honor or something. “She said that even though I ruined it, she really liked the cut and fit. She wanted to know where I got it.”

“She wouldn’t be caught dead at Target.”

“I told her I bought it at the Red Circle Boutique.”

Marin laughs so hard her water bottle falls off her knee.

“I figured it was a pity compliment and she’d never go looking to get one like it anyway.”

“Good call. It does look great on you.”

“Thanks,” I sigh. “But not if I eat ten more of those cookies, and I really want to do that right now.”

“Why don’t you bring our sketches over?” she says, tucking her legs underneath her. “We might as well start working on the budget now.”

Ugh, the budget. I’ve been trying not to think about how I’m going to make this party as amazing as I’d originally planned with nearly half the money I’d planned to do it with.

I spread out my portfolio on the coffee table, and Marin reaches for a fabric sample. “We have some dupes of this that’s not as high-quality, but that doesn’t matter so much to teenagers. They’re gonna be dancing and spiking the punch and screwing around anyway.”

Good point. With a long-suffering sigh, I grab my tablet and delete the top five venues we’d chosen, leaving a list of less-desirable candidates.

“Hey,” Marin says with a smile. “We’ll make it work.”

I nod. We’re gonna have to.